3 Critical Questions To Confirm Your Purpose

Burundi is a small country just east of Congo in Africa. Several years ago, a young man was walking through the countryside when he came across a small keeper of elephants. The man had a fence made of what looked like vintage bamboo wrapped around the herd. Within this fence were 10-12 massive elephants; some weighing in at over 10,000 lbs.

Interestingly, these elephants were restrained by a simple rope wrapped around their ankle tied to a metal rod hammered into the ground. It was obvious these elephants could, at any time, break free from their constraints, but for some reason, they did not.

The young man shocked by what he saw, had his translator ask the keeper why these animals do not break away from these mere tethers. His response was, “When they were very young we tied them up with large chains to a 4-foot steel post hammered deep into the ground. It was sturdy and strong enough to keep them from escaping. As they grew older, they became conditioned to believe they could never break free. Today, out of convenience, we simply keep a rope wrapped where the chains once were. We believe they could easily cut these ropes, but they don’t.”

How often do outdated beliefs, practices, and history keep us from breaking the tiny ropes that keep us from our purpose? How often do the patterns from our past, poison our future?

Living a life of purpose is a universal desire. A longing for fullness, color, variety, and depth. But too often we are controlled by our past. With every opportunity, resource, and tool available to escape, we still believe in the strength of that rope.

As I often say to those who follow me, “Today isn’t rehearsal. This is your life. The pace of time is moving rapidly to your final day. A day you cannot control. A day where time stops, and you will only have what you had.”

In my experience, there are three simple elements which make up the vast majority of our physical story. Our work, our relationships, and our location.

But sadly, our culture likes to turn simple solutions into complex problems. We like to over-analyze and reason away the very things that could solve our troubles.

Below, I have outlined what might seem too simple to be considered brilliant; but I disagree. Like me, if you can manage to break free from the limits of your past and live within the answers to these three questions, you’ll find yourself living the life you’ve always wanted.

3 Critical Questions To Confirm Your Purpose

What are you most passionate about? If your passion is not your profession, you have a problem. We spend the majority of our lives working; and if you dislike your job, you often dislike your life. Sticking with the pattern of college, steady job, retirement, and death typically pulls purpose from the picture.So what drives you? What work makes you come alive? Maybe you have a dream to start a business, launch a profitable blog, or build a charity. Regardless of what chains you wore as a child, it’s time to break free. We live in a world filled with resources and support to help cut that rope and create that career. The question is, do you believe it?

Who’s most important to you? Life is only as meaningful as the people who experience it with you. But too often our fears keep us from words to be said and commitments to be made. Instead, we live on as independent entities homesick for relationships we believe we can’t have.But not anymore. I don’t believe we are victims to life, I believe we are victors. We have a choice, and we have the ability to create the relationships we desire. So who is the one person most important to you? Who makes you better, loves you fully, and brings joy to your life? If you’re on a separate journey from this person, it might be time to reconsider the path you’re on.

Where is your favorite place on earth? It’s baffling to watch millions of people lay down their dreams for destination and settle for living vicariously through the social media feeds of those brave enough to live. Finding comfort in familiarity is common. But if you have a desire to live on a farm (like our family does), yet you live in a city, it’s time change that. If you hate the cold of the Midwest and fill your home with images of tropical destinations, it’s time to chase that.Location determines the majority of our activity. And just because you were born one place, does not mean you must die there. Look, in maturity, we must come to the realization that someday isn’t a day and a dream without a plan is merely a wish. If your heart desires a destination in which you believe you can thrive, then it’s time to begin planning. Because even if you can’t move today, you can start making steps to move there in the future.

Bottom line, if you’re working on what you’re passionate about, with the person most important to you, in a place that brings adventure and excitement to your story, then you are living your purpose. Don’t let anyone make it seem more complicated than that. These people are merely individuals still struggling with the conditioning of their history’s chains.

Reality Check

These are big goals that fill big spaces in our lives. It took our family almost three years to begin living within all three of these questions. Three years of difficult decisions, personal sacrifices, and brave moves.

But if you’re on the search for you calling, let us help you. My wife Veronica and I wrote these two powerful books to help others locate their purpose and create the life they want. Discover what you’re meant to do in just 21-days. Click the image below to get your copy.

What’s stopping you from finding your purpose? Was this helpful? Let me know in the comments below.

Reader Interactions

Comments

In having helped leaders, their families, organizations and communities to realize their purpose for the past 8 years, I can relate to these three questions. Passion is key in realizing your purpose as it fuels everything, like the gas in a car. Without knowing what you value, purpose suffers. In knowing where our opportunities are, we are able to understand the ‘who’ and ‘where’ you bring up here. Thanks for all your continued insight on things that matter most. http://www.realized.ca

Linda, not sure if you could combine the volunteer energy you have with an entrepreneurial project… but are there any online training boot camps or certification courses for scout leaders? Perhaps you could market an online course that combines best of breed leadership training, safety/safe environment, scouting refresher, etc. Just a thought.

Dale,
Most people don’t think about location when they’re looking at life. We just wrapped up six years in cold, rainy Copenhagen. We loved it there but we were tired of being cold and yet most of the year. We chose to relaunch our lives in a warm environment. Environment matters!
Thanks,
Jack

Hey Dale,
Passion vs calling is a big question in the life of my husband and myself right now. We are both very passionate about “the wild” and being off-grid. Town life is just driving us crazy and we yearn to get back to where we’ve both been the most fulfilled and content. We “feel” very called to just pack up our roots and figure out a way to make it work living in the woods. We both love trapping, hunting and each have experience in guide outfitting, so are very drawn to trying to purchase our own guide outfit or registered trapline though that’s not financially feasible at the moment in a lot of ways. Our concern is whether or not we should be trusting the “feeling” of this being our calling. #1 is we want to pursue God’s will and purpose for our life. We pray daily for guidance in this are but I guess we just aren’t sure where to look for His answer or maybe we are missing it. Often it seems like it would be too good to be true that guiding or trapping off-grid would be his will for us, and we are worried we are being selfish. We are also concerned about lack of fellowship while snugged up in a cabin hundreds of km’s away from civilization. Do you have any insights to offer us? The difficulty is seemingly expanded in our minds as we have an almost two year old son and are hoping to expand our family in the next year or two… and guiding and trapping are not super family conduscive and really the only thing preventing us from being in that field of work (for an employer) right now. Our family dynamics and closeness is most important to us (I in particular was severely neglected as a child and teen by parents too busy pursuing their own careers, dreams and finances and neither my husband or I have any intention of doing that to our children) and so to make that factor thrive we would really need to be purchasing our own area and starting our own business so that we could ensure we wouldn’t be separated and “write our own rules” per say. But in the area we live in and love… buying an area requires a huge cash injection even for a cheaper one. So much so that saving up that much would probably be a minimum 10 year plan aside from divine intervention. Do you have any insight to offer us? We are just so afraid of trusting feelings and what we ourselves want… we want to be obedient to and follow the will of God in everything we do. We’re just having a hard time trying to confirm what His will for us is.

Hey, guys! Thank you so much for sharing some of your story and struggle with me. I’ve heard these kinds of struggles and walked through similar ones on my own. Because of this, I recently wrote a book about finding your calling and knowing, with confidence, what that is. Here a link to it if you’re interested in checking it out: https://shop.startupcamp.com/collections/books/products/find-your-calling

Hi Dale! Thanks for sharing this. My passion is acting. Acting moves my soul. I took an acting workshop 2 years ago in Los Angeles, California and I fell even more in love with acting. I always wanted to tried it since I was a little girl. I’m originally from Mexico so I had to come and visit my family. I’m currently in Mexico still since then because of a heart surgery emergency I had to stay for a while, and welll, here I am still. I would say, that the only thing that stops me from going and pursuing my dream is money. Mexico’s going through a not very good economy right now, and saving money it’s not easy at all. I’m playing it by ear right now. Thanks for taking time and reading this. And thank you for sharing your knowledge. It’s really helpful.

Hi Dale,
I have read a lot of your stuff and listened to a lot of your podcast. I love what you are doing! This article is awesome and very encouraging! I am 31 years old and have been running a growing company for 4 years now and love it! There are lots of challenges and things to learn but like you said we might as well live our lives pursuing our passions and what God has for our lives. I know far too many people who are living without meaning and passion…a sad way for any of us to live our lives. Thanks for this article!

I so agree with this… I’m trying to work on applying all three to my life, so far 1 and 2 are good, and currently working on moving to a more snowy destination (I live in South Africa, but I love snowy-winter places.)

My wife and I have been talking a lot about question number three. Thanks for the inspiration…it’s crazy the strange strongholds we have from childhood. My wife and I surf and our kids love the beach and being in the water, but some reason I’ve grown up with this false idea that moving to the beach is a selfish thing to do…we live 30 minutes from the beach in San Diego and my wife and I are working on two businesses this year to finally fulfill our passion and our families love for the ocean to move hopefully walking distance to the beach.

My question has to do more with number 2. What do you do when the person you should and want to be pursuing your passions with has no desire to go the same direction or is too afraid to follow their own passions? What do you do when it is your spouse that is paralyzed by fear and refuses to move forward even when he/she knows that it is tearing you down and killing your hopes and dreams?

Let me clarify a bit. I am a Christian too and I believe that we honor God by honoring our spouses. I want to honor my husband and live this journey and adventure together. However, my husband has consistently stated that he has no desire to go deeper or trust God to take us beyond our limits and I constantly am made to feel like I have to chose between following God or following the lead of my husband. I greatly desire to follow my husband as the leader, which frequently means that I must choose to disregard my own convictions, passions, and sense of calling. When I do choose to follow the Spirit’s leading, it is interpreted as me being rebellious or careless towards my husband and family. I appreciate your posts and see through them that you too love God and want to honor Him. I guess, more than anything, I would love to have an outside perspective on what question #2 looks like for me. I desperately want and need to confirm my purpose while honoring my husband at the same time.

Thats a tough place, Lani. I think that while you’re walking through this with God and asking Him for wisdom, you should also reach out to wise, trusted leaders in your community if you are not doing so already. Don’t walk this alone.